Pack Up Your Troubles

by Anne Bennett

  Then Father Casey knew it was the same man the child had told him she’d killed. For some reason, she didn’t know the whole story. The woman had stopped speaking, but the priest knew there was more for him to hear.

  ‘Go on, my child.’

  Maeve swallowed the lump, but her wobbly voice was husky with unshed tears as she went on, ‘We thought he was dead, Father. He fell unconscious to the floor, but when my daughter went upstairs to get dressed so that she could fetch the doctor, he opened his eyes and looked at me. And . . . and I knew if he lived, then next time he’d kill me, Father, and possibly my daughter too, because she’d struck out at him.’

  ‘So?’ prompted the priest.

  ‘So, I put a cushion over his face and smothered him to death,’ Maeve said, and added defiantly, ‘I was glad I did it. I don’t want absolution, Father, and I know you can’t give it. I just wanted to confess to someone. I’ll let God judge me, Father.’

  ‘My child?’

  But the woman had opened the door and left, and by the time the priest had collected himself and followed suit, he saw her scurrying from the church. That night he went to bed a troubled man. He’d never had a clash of loyalties before as far as rights and wrongs went, but now he was totally perplexed. A man of his parish or some adjoining one had been killed and he’d been a brute of the first order. The child thought she’d brought about his end and really it was the mother. If the police were involved, whatever he’d done to her previously she could hang for her actions that night. One of the commandments stated forcibly ‘Thou shalt not kill’, and he’d always thought murderers should hang – an eye for an eye, as it were. But not in this case. Oh, definitely not if all the woman and child had said was true.

  He wondered what they’d told the doctor, how they had covered it up as an accident. Surely the doctor wasn’t fooled. He should have informed the police. But there’d been nothing in the paper and anything like this would make headlines. But then Father Casey didn’t know when it had all transpired. But even if he’d had the faintest desire to inform the authorities, he couldn’t do so, because both the woman and girl had used the secrecy of the confessional box to whisper their guilty secret, knowing he could speak of it to no one else.

  Strangely enough, although Maeve hadn’t asked for absolution, nor received any, her heart felt definitely lighter as she left the confessional and she knew the time had come to speak to Grace, for the poor child was whipping herself. When Maeve entered the house, Grace made no comment on her absence, though she hadn’t known where she’d gone, nor did she give her mother any form of greeting. She seemed almost removed from normal life and Maeve knew she could wait no longer to be told the truth.

  She was glad for once they were alone and the wee ones would be well asleep by now. She made them both a cup of tea and they sat before the fire and drank it together.

  ‘D’you ever think of the night your father died, Grace?’ Maeve asked.

  Grace’s troubled eyes slid across to her mother and Maeve knew she didn’t want to think about it, let alone talk of it. She was silent so long Maeve thought she wasn’t going to answer at all and when she did it was in a whisper. ‘All the time.’

  She could have gone on to tell her mother of the times she’d woken from a terrifying nightmare with a shriek and found herself bathed in sweat, or the times she’d threshed about so much in an effort to escape the petrifying fear she’d roused Bridget as well as herself. She could have told Maeve she was now often too frightened to sleep and would lie wakeful and tense, just as scared by the thoughts tumbling around in her brain.

  But she couldn’t load all this on her mother and she was staggered when she heard Maeve say, ‘I know how it is, Grace, for my guilt lies heavy on me.’

  Grace stared at Maeve, her blue eyes seeming to stand out in her head. ‘Your guilt, Mammy? You did nothing but try to protect me.’

  ‘Oh, but I did, Grace,’ Maeve said, and she put her cup down and crossed to kneel in front of Grace’s chair. ‘Listen to me, Grace,’ she said, holding on to her hands tight and forcing her unwilling eyes to look into her own. ‘You didn’t kill your father. I did that.’

  Maeve felt Grace’s movement to pull her hands away, rejecting her words, but she held on tighter, knowing Grace had to believe her or guilt would destroy her life. ‘You stunned him only,’ she went on. ‘I thought he was dead, right enough. You mind we both thought that?’ She waited for Grace’s mute nod before going on. ‘But he wasn’t, pet. When I leant over him to get the poker, he opened his eyes and looked at me.’

  She heard Grace’s loud gasp. The fear had leapt into her eyes and voice as she said, ‘What did you do?’

  This time Maeve hesitated. She’d killed a man in cold blood, not in the heat of passion, a man who lay helpless on the floor. She was tortured by it and imagined always she would be and yet she had to admit to Grace what she’d done. ‘I thought of what you said earlier,’ Maeve began, ‘about Brendan being bad, evil. That night he intended beating me to pulp as he’s done before and then probably would have started on you because you stuck up for me. He also had something especially nasty planned for Kevin – he kept hinting at it. Suddenly I was angry. Why should he do as he pleased and just get away with it?’

  ‘Mammy, weren’t you scared?’

  ‘God, Grace, I thought my heart had stopped beating altogether,’ Maeve admitted. ‘But I knew it was a chance to finish it for good.’

  Grace gave a gasp. Her eyes were wide and scared-looking and her voice a horrified whisper as she asked again, ‘Mammy, what did you do?’

  Maeve shut her eyes for she couldn’t bear to see the condemnation in her daughter’s. She was back in that room, that terrible awful night with her bullying brute of a husband lying prostrate on the floor and herself leaning over him. She stammered as she tried to explain to Grace. ‘I-I c-caught up one of the cushions on the settee and smothered him, holding it down till he stopped breathing.’

  Grace pulled back from her mother. ‘You’re not just making this up?’

  ‘Christ, child, why would I make up such a tale?’ Maeve cried. ‘The guilt of what I did is killing me. I would have told you sooner if I could have done.’

  ‘But you couldn’t have held anything over Daddy’s face,’ Grace said. ‘He’d have pushed you off. I must have nearly half killed him for you to be able to do that.’

  ‘I’m not saying you didn’t hurt him,’ Maeve said. ‘I’m just saying you didn’t kill him. You might have wanted to, but you didn’t. If I hadn’t attacked him too and we’d have brought the doctor, he might be alive today.’

  A long shudder ran through Grace’s body. ‘I’m glad he isn’t,’ she said.

  ‘It might have been my funeral you were attending a few days later if he’d lived,’ Maeve said. ‘Never forget that, Grace. You saved my life and you never need feel a moment’s shame for your part in it.’

  Maeve sensed the burden slide from Grace’s shoulders, but she didn’t see the intense fear that replaced it, not for Grace herself, but for her mother, for the child knew her mother could hang for what she’d done that night. Only the two of them knew what had really happened and that’s how it must stay. Dr Fleming had guessed, Grace felt sure, but he didn’t know.

  What if one of them was to blurt it out, or the doctor were to have a sudden fit of conscience? Bodies could be exhumed; Grace had read about it. Would they know just by looking at her father’s body what had happened to him?

  ‘Mammy,’ she said urgently, ‘we must never tell another living soul about this.’

  Maeve gathered her daughter into her arms and hugged her tight and assured her that it would always be a secret between them.

  Brendan had been dead nearly a fortnight before life returned to somewhere near normal. Now Maeve had told Grace the truth, she knew she had to shake the despondency from herself because of necessity. She had children to rear and rent to pay and she needed money to do it.

  She couldn’t
rely on Kevin totally. Liam had advised her to see what she was entitled to and she roused herself to do so and was delighted by what she found out. Kevin called round that same evening and she was able to tell him about it.

  ‘I get one pound six shillings widow’s pension, and together with the fifteen shillings family allowance, that makes two pounds and a shilling.’

  ‘It’s still not a fortune, Mammy,’ Kevin said. ‘I want you to take some more money from me. The Mosses doubled my wages after they heard of my father’s death.’

  ‘Ah, that was kind of them, but I don’t need any more,’ Maeve said. ‘My rent has been reduced. I now have to pay only four shillings instead of six and six. I tell you son, I’ll be in clover.’

  In clover, Kevin thought. Because she’s not being starved or frozen to death she’s in clover! He said nothing, but was determined to continue to supply her with some money, together with the basket Gwen Moss packed for him on Fridays, as well as ordering and paying for coal for as long as it was needed.

  Kevin wanted to buy suitable clothes for them all too. He’d been paying into a clothing club since he’d begun full-time work, as he promised himself he would. The damned points system for clothes and household goods was a nuisance, especially as the allowance had been reduced since the war ended. But he didn’t need new things himself; he had plenty and his points could certainly be used for the others. He was determined, by hook or by crook, he’d bring a better standard of living to all his family, and in particular his mother, and take as much worry off her as he could.

  But Maeve was grateful for the widow’s pension and family allowance from the Government and didn’t want Kevin to beggar himself for her sake, though despite her protests, he seemed to see himself as the breadwinner in the family.

  ‘Grace will be working next year,’ Maeve told Elsie one day. ‘All the weans are growing up. Mary Ann will be two years old in July and I have a good pair of hands on me. I can work for my living and Kevin doesn’t have to try and do it all.’

  ‘Let the boy help you if it pleases him,’ Elsie advised Maeve. ‘Nearly every time the lad comes here he has something with him for you, or one of the weans.’ And Elsie was right. In Kevin’s quest to see them all more decently clad, he’d bought nighties for Bridget and Mary Ann, and the first pair of new shoes Bridget could ever remember having. Then there was a scarf and balaclava for Jamie and a warm cardigan and stockings for Maeve.

  No one asked where he got the stuff from. Grace knew some of it was bought legally with coupons and some was bought from the spivs that ringed St Martin’s Square in the Bull Ring, or from those with suitcases packed with illicit stuff, who knocked on people’s doors. They did a roaring trade. Women had been starved of pretty underclothes, and serviceable but fashionable day clothes for too long. They welcomed the men offering camiknickers and pretty brassieres and a choice of frocks, warm cardigans, and rayon or the new nylon stockings that were just sneaking in from America. It wasn’t the prices the spivs charged only, though in general they were much less than those charged in the shops, but the fact that they took no coupons, or very few, for the money handed over.

  But the new winter coat Kevin was buying for his mother he’d picked in a draper’s shop near the Mosses’ quite legally. The wool-mix coat and matching hat were in saxe blue. It was costing him seventeen and six, and the gloves the same shade as the coat another two and six, and Kevin had been paying for it every week since he’d begun work. The whole lot was to cost him seventeen coupons as well as the price, but still he was determined to present his mother with the outfit before the winter chill of 1946 began to make itself felt.

  Maeve knew Kevin felt the burden of the whole family rested on his shoulders and she worried about it because, broad though they were, they were still the shoulders of a young lad.

  ‘Oh God, Elsie,’ she cried often, ‘if only I could earn money of my own like I did before.’

  ‘Aye,’ Elsie remarked drily. ‘It’s a damned pity they’ve all stopped shooting each other and there’s no need for you to mind children for their mothers while they make bullets and cartridge cases or assemble machine guns.’

  ‘Don’t be so stupid, Elsie. You know what I mean.’

  ‘I know these babbies won’t always be small,’ Elsie said. ‘In time you’ll maybe be able to look after yourself. Till then take all the help you can get.’

  Then one Saturday in the early autumn of 1946, Elsie came in with news of Angela Bradshaw. Maeve had seen little of her for some time, but knew Deidre’s parents were having trouble looking after such a small child. And now Elsie said, ‘The Welfare have been called in about her. The old woman’s lost it, they say, and they’ve taken her away to a home and the child can’t be left on her own with the old feller. They’ve sent for the father, Matthew Bradshaw, and he’s coming home on compassionate leave. I mean,’ Elsie went on, ‘it isn’t as if the old man is in any way grateful, and all the neighbours do for them as well. He’s often downright rude. Their next-door neighbour was just telling me about it in Mountford’s. She said Angela will probably have to go into an orphanage till Matthew is demobbed.’

  Maeve thought long and hard after Elsie had gone home that day. She thought about Deidre and her kindness, both to her children and to Maeve herself, and the tragedy of all that had happened to them, and Matthew’s devastating loss. Eventually she put on her coat and left the house, calling to Grace to mind the weans. Women, taking a breath of air in their doorways, watched Maeve and wondered where she was bound on a fine autumn afternoon without her children.

  Matthew Bradshaw, who’d been home only hours himself, was very surprised to see her. He didn’t know Maeve that well, but he knew Deidre had thought a lot of her.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Hogan.’

  ‘Can I come in, Mr Bradshaw?’

  ‘Of course,’ Matthew said, recovering his manners.

  Maeve stepped into a living room very like her own in size. She looked round and noticed the thick film of dust that covered everything. Dirty plates, bowls and cups littered the stained oilcloth that covered the table, while papers and rubbish lay strewn across the floor. Every dining chair housed more rubbish, or piles of creased and grimy clothing, and the lino stuck to Maeve’s feet.

  And just across the room, a grubby child with green mucus trailing from each nostril, sat on a filthy rug before an ash-filled grate nursing a cloth doll. Her long dark-brown hair lay matted on her head and fell in tangles around her face, her dress was soiled and food-stained and her bare feet begrimed black.

  The sour smell of neglect and squalor hung over everything. Maeve remembered how Deidre had loved and cared for her baby and thought she’d be turning in her grave to see Angela living in such conditions.

  It brought tears to Maeve’s eyes and she left Matthew’s side and squatted beside Angela as Matthew said, ‘I’m sorry it’s such a mess. I only arrived today myself. I’ve already had a go at the old man for letting it get into such a state. He’s taken to his bed now, sulking. Apparently it’s not for the first time either.’

  Maeve wiped the little girl’s nose with a handkerchief she had up her sleeve and gently pushed her tangled locks from her face, and all the time the child sat mute and unresponsive. But her solemn brown eyes watched every move and showed Maeve her confusion and unhappiness.

  ‘I thought the neighbours came in,’ Maeve said.

  ‘They do when he’ll let them,’ Matthew said bitterly. ‘Apparently he’s kept them out now for a week. God, he lives like a pig!’

  ‘He’s an old man,’ Maeve said gently. ‘He’s not up to dealing with a child.’

  ‘Well, he won’t have to any longer,’ Matthew said, and Maeve didn’t miss the anguish in his voice. ‘I must hand her over to the local authorities. They’re coming to take her in the morning. They say it’s the only way.’

  ‘Do you want that?’ Maeve asked with a shiver. She’d heard terrible tales of children given into care. Some, she understood, had b
een sent to Australia or Canada, and without the parents being aware of it at all. Other children had been taken to the authorities by frantic parents often bombed out and destitute, who asked for their help till they got on their feet. But when they did, they’d often search fruitlessly for their children and sometimes never got them back again. She didn’t know if all the tales were true or not. She just knew she’d not risk it.

  Maeve tried to rise to her feet, but the child clutched at her. Angela had known little kindness in her short life. She’d been passed from pillar to post, but this lady had sat beside her, talked softly and touched her hair gently, and she didn’t want her to go. She was just turned two and a half, too young to understand what was happening, but old enough to pick up on the strained atmosphere.

  She didn’t know the man who said he was her daddy and who had had a row with her grandpa. She was afraid of her grandpa because he shouted at her and at the neighbours too, but she didn’t want to go anywhere with the strange man either. She didn’t want to lose sight of the kind lady, though, and she held on to her tightly.

  Maeve took the small hand clutching at her coat and felt Angela’s fingers tighten in her own. She’d already made a decision. She’d made it when she wiped the muck from the child’s face and saw her trembling lips and the eyes sadder than any child’s eyes should ever be. She knew what she was going to do, for Deidre, and Matthew too, for the child was all he had left.

  ‘She can come home with me. I’ll look after her.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘We haven’t much, but what we have is clean and I have a wee daughter of my own just a little younger than yours. I’ll love her like one of my own, which is more than can be said for any orphanage.’

  Matthew knew she was right. He recalled his wife telling him that Maeve Hogan had minded children for working women in the war. She was a widow now, he understood. He’d heard the talk in the street and the consensus of it seemed to be that whatever manner of man her husband was, she was better off without him. But still he could imagine money was tight, though he doubted, even from the few minutes he’d spoken to her, that she’d offered to mind Angela for the money.